Stephen brought up a good point today that for many of us this is our third time playing a game like this, so we're pretty used to what's expected of us as players. I damn near finished a fresh run of Dark Souls this past weekend in preparation, and I think that's colored my impressions of the difficulty quite a bit. True, I've been able to take out most bosses on my first shot, but that's come as a result of playing cautious as hell and waiting for openings. Plus, there's a number of bosses that are way easier with other people or if you do something in the environment. I think only Dark Souls virgins can speak clearly to the game's difficulty (or those who have pumped the game up to NG+ levels by joining one of the first covenants...).

Oh, and the mook enemies are indeed WAY tougher in this game. That's usually where I die the most. Especially when I'm fighting them for the first time or I get careless.

I was worried about the game's difficulty in comparison to the earlier Souls games, so I burned a Bonfire Asetic and joined the Company of Champions and I've been getting my ass kicked, especially by groups of enemies. That being said, the bosses have been pretty disappointing so far.I read somewhere that Hidetaka Miyazaki, the director of the first two games, had a huge influence on the boss design, so that may be the big sacrifice the series took without his direction.Most of my deaths are a result of me screwing up the combat mechanics, it's taking some time to adjust to the changes after I obsessively ran through Dark Souls again to prepare for DS2.

The biggest change in the combat mechanics IMO is how you don't immediately raise your shield anymore. You have to be so damn careful now because it's almost an action now, as there's some animation frames you have to go through in order to reach blocking status. That was killing me over and over again at the start, but I've gotten pretty used to it so far.

Yeah, I'm finding blocking to be a good deal less effective for my build as well. Paired with rolling losing a good deal of its iFrames, unless you level Adaptability, and the Demon's Souls-styled HP decrease upon death, your mistakes hurt more than in the last two games. I like it in that masochistic Souls-styled way.

A random tidbit:Once you make yourself a decent poison resistant build, Harvest Valley is so much fun. You don't even have to attack the green enemies, you can just jump down into the mist, quickly run out, and they'll kill themselves.

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The difficulty seems a bit unbalanced. For example, Gargoyles and the Sentinel trio were incredibly crazy solo. Sinner was a reallyneat and brutal fight, but you can make it easier for yourself by lighting up the area. Then, a bit after, you have the Skeleton Lordtrio which was easy once you realized the proper order for killing things, then a weird blob-like thing that I don't think anyone coulddie to.

See, that animation was in Dark Souls, but it certainly didn't last as long. Thankfully, I went with a heavy shield and bastard sword combo with light armor to keep me maneuverable. I can roll when I have to and my damage output is pretty nice. Just got to +8 with 31 strength and I'm doing about 310 damage per hit. Keep in mind that elemental damages now scale with attributes (lightning with faith, for example), so you really can go just about any direction with your character without ending up screwed provided you focus on a couple of attributes. I put my adaptability around 25 so my speed is around 96. I can't really notice a difference, but I'm sure it's there when it comes to attack animations. Also, you can roll faster after a swing than raising your shield, which I have to constantly remember on certain boss fights.

Yeah, I'm finding blocking to be a good deal less effective for my build as well. Paired with rolling losing a good deal of its iFrames, unless you level Adaptability, and the Demon's Souls-styled HP decrease upon death, your mistakes hurt more than in the last two games. I like it in that masochistic Souls-styled way.

A random tidbit:Once you make yourself a decent poison resistant build, Harvest Valley is so much fun. You don't even have to attack the green enemies, you can just jump down into the mist, quickly run out, and they'll kill themselves.

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The difficulty seems a bit unbalanced. For example, Gargoyles and the Sentinel trio were incredibly crazy solo. Sinner was a reallyneat and brutal fight, but you can make it easier for yourself by lighting up the area. Then, a bit after, you have the Skeleton Lordtrio which was easy once you realized the proper order for killing things, then a weird blob-like thing that I don't think anyone coulddie to.

I was struggling with poison because of the boss in the area next to Harvest Valley. What build did you use for poison resist? Also

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Sinner was one of the best fights in the game so far. Also, the Blob you're referring is the one at the end of Black Gulch , or the one who looks like Jabba the Hut? Because i had some major problems fighting the one at black gulch

I can not stress enough how useful the bow is in this game, even if you are in a mainly melee build.

You can actually eliminate the poison lake when you fight that Medusa-wannabe. Near one of the bonfires is a slightly hidden path that leads up to the main windmill. Look for one of those fast ninja-like things right near an open area you can easily fall down. You have the option to set fire to it if you have a lit torch. Makes that fight way easier.

There's a Posionbite Ring at the very end of Harvest Valley/Start of Earthen Peak that I was using while playing around in the area. It'll be useful in an area later, too.

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You need to go down the right door from Harvest Valley where you enter Earthen Peak, instead of the left one.If that isn't clear, enter via the lower level instead of the upper level. This will put you at the very, very bottom level ofEarthen Peak. Here, enter the water and you'll find a side path with a Pharos Lockstone symbol. The chest is gained there.

I think the thing with the bosses is it seems like there are a lot more roughly human size/shape bosses in this one. Not many big Gaping Dragon type things. Maybe later...I've killed roughly 10 bosses at this point

Some more thoughts;This game feels more like Demon's Souls to me in that levels are very polarizing. You're going to love some, you're going to hate some. I generally enjoyed most every level in Dark 1, even Blighttown with its horrid FPS and Sen's which brilliantly designed cruelty, but there are some levels here that I outright abhor. On the other hand, there are some I quite love.

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Also, I am absolutely certain Smelter Demon will be considered "that" boss in the same way Flamelurker was.